“How About You Raise Your Kids YOUR Way, And I Raise Mine?” — A Starbucks Confrontation

I saw a baby in a stroller at the grocery store playing with a plastic grocery bag. It wasn’t quite over his head, but it got close sometimes. The mom couldn’t see his face much of the time and was distracted with the shopping, and I thought “what if he dies and it’s my fault?” I did not say anything to her. He’s probably fine, but sometimes I wish I’d said something.

Eric: ” I’m pretty sure there are quite a number of fathers out there just like this paranoid mom.”

I agree that more men will keep their mouths closed about this. But I also suspect that the men don’t get confronted nearly as much when they are dadding. Not by other men and also not by other moms …

But maybe the guys just don’t write about it?

” Do you get very many dad stories of this ilk?”

I was also a single parent. I managed to through my child’s complete development cycle without being confronted about my parenting choices. (Except from my (then-childless) sister, who used to ask “why do you let her do that?” a lot. Now she knows why.)

I don’t know if it’s because these judgmental moms are too afraid to confront a man with that kind of vehemence, or because they just don’t have high expectations for men doing child-rearing generally. Or maybe I’m just lucky, and the people here are not so judgmental in the first place.

Dolly: “sometimes something does need to be said like the example another person just gave about a baby playing with a plastic bag”

Agreed. And what I usually say in the (rare) occasions that I feel a need to say something is, “Is this (pointing) okay?” With the correct tone, the question as phrased suggests that (a) the parent might not know what the kid is up to, but (b) that I’m not going to second guess if the parent says “yes.”

Great piece. But she’s actually wrong about the trampolines. There are ways to avoid injury on tramps, but most parents are unaware of them, which is why tens of thousands of kids end up in emergency rooms as a result of trampoline injuries.

The comeback of beer and smokes is good. Even better if it’s delivered as:

Lowers voice, lean in and start with
I shouldn’t be telling you this, but….

Oh, and Rae–my child did tear her ACL on a trampoline–on her wedding day. Long after I had relinquished my parental right to interfere…

Apparently 92,000 trampoline-related E.R. visits per year, in case anyone was curious about that number.

I am a stay-at-home dad, so I think I got a little more than the usual advice. Waiting in the grocery line with my ten month old a woman leaned forward and said, “He’s playing with a plastic shopping bag… that is NOT an appropriate toy for a child his age.”

And out to lunch the following week he was standing on my lap playing with a fork and a person at the next table leaned over and said, “Your son has a fork in his mouth. Those can be sharp.” The two friends I was with were very amused and said, “Now we’re having lunch with ‘The Bad Dad.'”

It was probably every other week before he could walk, and then a monthly occurrence. Amazing to me how often people were willing to stop their day to say, “Your son is not strapped into the stroller, he could fall out.”

“It’s okay, I was left in the station wagon outside the Shop-n-Stop WITH THE KEYS IN IT and look at me! I turned out… well, I’m still alive anyhow.” Worst thing that ever happened was to my mother, because my brother thought the funniest thing in the world was to turn the volume on the radio as loud as it would go and see what happened when she turned the ignition key. It never got old for him.

@Mark – an interesting study was done (Lenore might know where to find it) in which people were asked to evaluate the risk of varying degrees of parents leaving their kids alone. When the parent was a father, both male and female responders rated each and every activity as being less risky than when the parent was a mother. So, yes, there appears to be a real gender bias in this realm. Unless you’re a Dad. At. A. PARK…. Dads are not allowed at parks.

I was at a playground with my 2 kids. I was standing back watching. My then 2 year was going down a short slide head first. This was mild compared to other things she does. Another mom asked her where her mommy was because she was going to fall on her head. My response was “I’m right here and she’s fine.”

#1 absolutely wrong. I see this all the time at work. Parents leaving kids in the car is a crime. Above a certain age no. But if they’re under 5 that’s wrong.

I think the only judgmental comment was when I developed pre-eclampsia during my first pregnancy, and the nurse taking my blood pressure told me I should take better care of myself. Since the shock of that encounter, I’ve readied some amazing comebacks, but I haven’t been criticized since. No one gave me grief for eating sushi while pregnant (although one sushi chef asked if I wanted cooked rolls and said okay when I said no), for letting my toddlers climb the “big kids” play sets, or for anything else that comes to mind. Not even when, as a new mom shopping for groceries, I slipped my 6-month old son in the stroller, turned back to pay, and he fell out the front onto the floor did anyone say a word.

@will:

Parents leaving kids in the car is a crime.

Why? State law, Federal law, can you tell us the appropriate section?
Or is this just your opinion?

@Will — No, it ISN’T *absolutely wrong*. While it some places it might be a crime it shouldn’t be. Arresting me and taking me to jail and putting my kid(s) into the system because I left him in the car to go into the gas station to pay for gas is far more traumatic than my kid quietly waiting in the car doing his thing while I run inside.

We aren’t talking about going out for a four course meal while the child waits outsize in subzero temperatures.

You said” Above a certain age” what certain age? My kids were all different maturity levels at different ages. Two of them, at 6, I could have left in a car to go inside and pay for gas with problems. The other one would not likely have done anything wrong but could be a bit impetuous and wasn’t worried about a damn thing and I could see deciding he was bored and coming into the gas station to find me. Which in and of itself isn’t a problem but I’d be concerned about so many cars maneuvering around the pumps not seeing him.

My co-worker has a 10 year old she wouldn’t leave because he hasn’t shown the ability to sit still for five minutes and behave himself without an adult around.

Will, have you been at a Starbucks lately?

Many years ago my brother and I were walking on a trail in King’s Canyon National Park when we saw a couple kids – 7 to 10 years old would be my guess – chase a baby bear up a hill. It didn’t seem like it should take a great amount of outdoor knowledge to understand that their vacation could come to a rapid and bloody end if the now terrified baby found his mama before the kids got bored with this game, but apparently it does. I did say something to the clearly brain-dead parents who were videoing this to no avail. Luckily we were near the end of the trail and there were two park rangers the in the parking lot who took the situation much more seriously. So basically, yes there are times that you should say something and even escalate your concerns to people with some authority. But there is a huge gulf between playing on a stool and chasing a baby bear.

Well, I’ve got a rather bizarre parent shaming story, not with me but with my niece and her husband. Years ago, my niece and her husband and then 7-year-old son were down at Disney World and waiting in line for one of the amusement rides. My grand nephew was wearing his baseball hat ON BACKWARDS when another parent approached my niece and reprimanded her for allowing her young son to wear his cap on backwards. She claimed it was a characteristic of criminal street gang members to wear baseball hats on their heads backwards and said it was disgusting to see a boy as young as my grand nephew was to wear his hat that way.

That’s right folks, you can’t make this stuff up!

@Mark I’m glad to hear you don’t have to deal with this! As some other commenters have pointed out, yes, I do think there is a double standard in effect for moms and dads. Sometimes it may work in your favor, other times not. Men are expected to be more rough and physical with children. And some busybody strangers may be too intimidated to speak up to a man, especially if he’s larger than said stranger. And like @James said, unfortunately, SO many people have pretty low expectations for fathers and their capabilities.

But then there are scenarios where the unsolicited “advice” might get dumped on dads more. @Colin said he’s a SAHD and gets a ton of “advice” from judgmental strangers. (I love the one about the fork in your kid’s mouth! LOL! “Where do you want him to put it? His butt?”) I think there are a lot of moms who feel justified in telling a dad how to raise his kids because they think they obviously know so much more about the subject, what with being female and all.

Thank you all for all the wonderful comments! You made my day!

@Sarah and @Dolly–Yes, I do agree that there are times when it is appropriate to point something out to another parent, like the incident with the baby and the plastic bag. There is a difference between scolding another parent for a choice they’re making and informing them about something they might not have seen their child do.

This is not exactly the same thing, but one time my son hid from me at Target. (Yes, the same boy who was climbing on that infamous stool!) I turned around for a second and he was gone. I looked for him calmly for a few minutes, then I started running up and down the aisles screaming his name. But he was hiding and making sure I couldn’t find him. Soon, all the moms in the store were helping me search. One mom found him and carried him to me. She apologized for grabbing my son, but I said, “Are you kidding? THANK YOU for grabbing my son!”

Sometimes, it really does take a village. I just wish the village would understand that we’re all supposed to be on the SAME SIDE!

@momodtwo–I think I know which study you’re talking about. Was it this one?http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/08/22/490847797/why-do-we-judge-parents-for-putting-kids-at-perceived-but-unreal-risk

Fascinating (thought not surprising) findings.

@Qute–I love your comment so much! I’ve said this same thing many times! Before my kids were born, I was a social worker. I worked in the foster care system for several years. And let me tell you, if you think a child would be better off in the care of the state than in the care of his loving mother who left him in the car for a few minutes, you are absolutely insane. You want to break up a family, traumatize a child, cause them all sorts of legal issues, and completely disrupt everyone’s life just because you disagree with a parenting choice? That’s a serious problem.

And to the rest of it: yes! yes! yes! All kids mature differently. I started leaving my oldest two alone in the car at around ages 6 and 7, but my third child (yes, Raymond!), is almost 6 and showing absolutely no signs of being anywhere close to ready for that. This is why PARENTS, and not the state or some nosey stranger, should be the people making these decisions. We are the ones who know our children best!

>>Men get credit for just being around their kids. I was with a friend one time riding the bus about 10:30 at night when a man got on carrying a toddler and holding on to a preschooler. My friend (female) said something like, “I bet he’s a great dad”. I just looked at her like she’d grown another head. “If it were a woman with two small kids,” I pointed out, “you’d be asking what the hell she’s doing out so late with them.”

But specifically in reference to this story, had the mom told Raymond to get down from there, some mom would be judging her for being too harsh.<<

As for the bus story, the answer to "what the hell is that parent doing out so late with the kids?" could easily be, "they got stranded due to a bus screw-up." Seriously, the public transit system here is terrible–buses only run every 30 minutes normally, and every hour in the evenings (after 6 or 6:30 or so), and on Sundays. Buses get delayed by traffic, bad weather, passengers needing assistance (like, a person in a wheelchair, or pushing a stroller, or a person asking for directions), or any number of reasons. If a few of those reasons piled up on top of each other, and/or the father and the kids took the wrong bus and it took more time to get back on track (which could happen if he's not used to taking the bus, or if there was a change in the routes that he didn't know about until it was in effect), then it'd be entirely possible for him to be stuck on public transit at 10:30 p.m. with two small children–in fact, taking public transit with small children is even harder, and might take longer, because they can't run as fast to catch a bus pulling up to a stop as an adult can, or they might have a bathroom emergency that conflicts with the arrival of an infrequently-running bus. So, if I saw an adult of either gender with small children on public transit late at night, I'd feel sorry for them, not slam them for "bad parenting."

I have had a few encounters, but thankfully I don’t remember most of them, LOL.

One that I do remember: a lady came up in the grocery store and said, “your daughter is standing.” My 1yo was indeed standing on the “seat” part of the cart, where if I’d thrown her off balance by pushing the cart absent-mindedly, she might have fallen on her head on the hard floor. So, that was helpful. I was embarrassed that it had to be said, but thankful.

Pretty much every other time, it was just annoying, LOL.

At least once a woman called the cops on me over something on the above “non-dangerous” list. Another time I was told the busybody was afraid I was going to take my child home and abuse her (because I was pissed off at the busybody). Both anecdotes have been told here enough times, though. 🙂

My usual answer to meddlers is, “don’t you remember doing that when you were a kid?”

“The rest of the world and all of human history would LOVE to live in 2017 America”. Erm, no. We wouldn’t.

When my younger son was about 2 he found a small dress shirt button (the kind that holds down a button down collar) on the ground and shoved it up his nose (yes, I know, we are also incredibly proud of this accomplishment). When we realized what had happened, we took him to the doctor. He’d shoved it so far up that the usual removal procedure (involving what looked like a giant pair of tweezers!) would not work unless he was sedated. So, a few days later we took him to the highly regarded children’s hospital here for the procedure.

When he came out of the anesthesia, he started thrashing around. i later found out from several friends in the medical field that this type of reaction is not uncommon in toddlers when coming out of anesthesia. He was thrashing so hard, with unbelievable strength, that it took all my muscle power to keep him from throwing himself off the table and onto the hard floor in the recovery area.

An older nurse, the only person in the room with us, looked over and said, “you know, in my day when children behaved like that, they got a spanking. But I guess you younger parents don’t believe in that anymore.”

If I hadn’t been struggling with King Kong at that point I probably would have had a nasty response. But I was so shocked that a nurse in a children’s hospital would say such a thing that I just nodded and kept my grip on my son. She never once offered to help me.

@Lindy–I am SO jealous that you came up with that reply on the spot!

@Melanie

Do you just stroll around the internet looking for opportunities to insult other peoples’ cultures? Because that seems like an odd way to spend your time.

Walk nearly a mile to Rite Aid with two other sixth graders and buy candy with their lunch money. (Today’s no-school activity.)

“Do you just stroll around the internet looking for opportunities to insult other peoples’ cultures?”

Actually, that was a RESPONSE TO someone’s taking the opportunity to insult other people’s cultures.

Let me break it down for you.
Saying “everyone wants to be an American” is insulting to people who aren’t Americans and feel their culture is just fine the way it is.
Saying “no, not everyone wants to be an American” is a defense of other people’s cultures.

(I am an American, and I think our culture is pretty good in most areas, although there’s room for improvement. I wouldn’t want to live in Muslim theocracy, but I wouldn’t want to live in Christian one, either.)

I remember walking around the mall with my daughter and getting stopped saying she is cute but she really needs a little brother. She is well behaved for a two year old but that will change and you will sorry. She is now 15 and I was in a supermarket yesterday and one of the checkers said to me I saw your daughter in here at lunch (her high school has open lunch) and she was one of the few I did not want to discipline. She ordered her food, did not push any senior citizens out of the way, and left the store quickly after paying. I know she did because I would have received a notice from the school if she was late to 5th period.

This one time, I was in Walmart (without my son) and there was a boy in a cart with his mom throwing a very, very loud tantrum. From the gist of his screaming, it sounded like he wanted something and his mother was refusing to buy it for him. I was mortified for her, and thought to myself “dear Lord that could my kid in a few years!” I gave the mom props for continuing to shop instead of running him out of the store and abandoning her errand.
Then, of course, another woman goes over to the cart. I thought to myself that if I had approached the woman, I would have put my hand on her shoulder and said “it’s okay, all kids do this.” Instead, the stranger bends down and looks the boy in the face, and in a very loud and yet managing to sound condescending, she asks the boy “Are you OK? Do you need help? Is there something going on?”
Yes, because kids who scream “NO I WANT THAT ONE! I WANT THAT ONE! I DON’T WANT THIS ONE, I WANT THAT ONE!” are being kidnapped!
The mom sidestepped her and responded, “he’s fine, he’s just not getting what he wants” and pushed the cart away. She went up to the registers, checked out and left the store, with the boy screaming the entire way.
That’s a good mom.

Ha ha. I get a lot of surprise reactions from parents about what I let my children do. Lots of snow on the ground out here in New England, but Saturday was sunny and bright. My agile 7 yo, with snow boots, walked on top of the pushed-up barriers of snow in between street and sidewalk. They are craggy. They crunch. They make only be a foot across. He’s uphigh sining and balancing. What fun.

He walked on plenty that there as tall as he is. A few people had their eyes wide with shock, their mouths open o’s. I just smiled.

What’s the worse that could happen — a twisted ankle? How does a low probability of an accident compare against the high probability of a frustrated boy who no longer enjoys going on walks with his mom?

@JulieC – the anaesthesia incident is nuts! I wonder if that nurse was just filling in, and hadn’t spent time in Recovery before, because otherwise she should have known what was happening. My El Sicko was still thrashing around at nine, and has a range of reactions to anaesthetic even now…probably will for life. So do lots of others. You’d think a nurse would get that, wouldn’t you? !

@CrazyCatLady
“A few days later, I saw a commercial on TV that the state was running. Advertisements with cops saying that kids who don’t go to preschool will end up in jail by the time they were adults.”

Uh, wow. Just wow. How isolated do you have to be to believe something like that?

Makes we wonder how many state-sponsored PSAs are just blatant lies. I know I’ve mentioned before a Pennsylvania PSA pushing seat belt use that showed a state cop saying “I’ve never unbuckled a dead person”. A retired state cop of my acquaintance said he had done exactly that quite frequently in his 30-year career.

>>I have had many public parent shaming incidents, but one was from a fella who worked at Home Depot. He loudly asked me in a disgusted voice why I had put my son in a hot pink snow suit. I informed HD Fella that I put my bald daughter in a hot-pink snow suit (it was 29 degrees out). He then tells me that I should get her ears pierced so that people would know she’s a girl!

Yes, you should design all your parenting choices around helping annoying strangers figure out what pointless thing to lecture you about.

When my son was 2 – 5, we’d sometimes have an argument in a store. “WHY CAN’T I HAVE THIS TOY”?
I’d then reply, “BECAUSE I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO NEGLECT YOU FOR A WHILE! I NEED SOME FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT!”

No, that was the exact same comment I made to a woman who felt she had to stand outside with my 8 year old son in front of a health food store. She waited there with her kids and proceeded to let me know what I was doing was wrong. We were camping and had our dog with us, it was hot and there was no way the dog could say in the van. So we walked up to the store together, and my son waited out front (for literally like 5 min) while I went in to grab a can of chips we all wanted. Seriously one item. That fast. And she freaked out. But I said the exact same thing, “You raise your kids your way, I’ll raise my kids my way.” I actually said that if we love our kids and are doing our best by them, then we are doing great, and she told me I’m not. Oh and she said I should have left my dog at home (um, I’m camping) I said.

“So, if it isn’t safe for the child, is it not safe for adults?”

A trampoline is dangerous. But it isn’t some fixed value of danger… like any tool, the danger it creates goes down when the person using it knows what they are doing, and goes up (way up) when it is misused.

So, if a kid is over at another kid’s house, and there’s a trampoline there, there should probably be adult supervision while the new kid learns how to jump safely.
Another big source of trampoline injury is adults who seriously misjudge their capabilities. (“Hey, I haven’t been on one of these things since I was a kid. I wonder if I can still do a double backflip?”) Obviously, adult supervision doesn’t help with this. Maybe stay clear of the trampoline after consuming “adult beverages”.
Then, there’s the stupid, crazy stuff that’s asking for trouble beginning to end (“so I’ll run down the roof, jump to the trampoline, slam-dunk this basketball, and then land in the pool….”) People that get those kind of injuries will find a way to injure themselves, or they will remain lucky, regardless of any attempt at supervision.

So… if you have kids who will learn the safety rules and follow them when unsupervised, then they don’t need supervision on a trampoline. If you have kids who have the “hey, everybody, look at me!” gene, trampolining may not be in their best interests. The higher the density of kids, the higher the danger to each of them, even if each individually is conscientious.

As a kid, I wanted one in the backyard, but my parents wouldn’t buy one because I was the type of kid who pushed the the high-jump pads up to the bleachers and jumped off the top. On the other hand, as a parent, I didn’t buy one because my kid was a climber and not a jumper.

I disagree about “wait in the car 5 minutes while mom is in the store” that gets kids killed. in the wrong weather, wrong situation and wrong circumstance, and in some states, is also illegal.

@pentamom:
“…using good judgment,…”

You don’t understand that to some folks “your judgment isn’t good enough” because it doesn’t match what they think

@JulieC, my son did the button-up-his-nose thing too, but the doctor’s long tweezers got it out. That was his first attempt at mediocre effort that stayed with him throughout the years.

(And if anyone is wondering, yes this is a joke.)

The “something terrible could have happened to the mom while she was in the store” argument is hilarious. If something terrible happened to me in a store, I’d much rather have my kid taken out of the car and taken home to my husband by the cops while they take me to the morgue or hunt for my abductor, than have him with me also having something terrible happening to him.

But also, if you arrange your life around the possibility of being randomly abducted or shot while shopping, you’re either not going to be able to function at all, or you’re actually not doing that and making a very selective argument that actually has no real-world applicability.

@Tami

“It was a tragic accident, until you read all the comments in the Facebook post blaming the parents for letting their child run around unattended long enough for that to happen. Nevermind that the article was short on those details.”

Ugh! I can’t stand that! What’s with all of the speculation? Why does our culture WANT to assign blame for every tragedy? Must every tragedy turn into a public-square flogging?

If you want an example of everybody speculating and jumping to Bad Mommy conclusions, look no further than this blog. I submitted a story about my son nearly getting flattened in a parking lot by an SUV. https://www.freerangekids.com/my-son-nearly-died-because-i-took-him-out-of-the-car/

As I can largely expect from this blog’s followers, I received mostly support and empathy from commenters. But also watch the implicit assumption unfold that I was letting him run amok in a busy lot, not watching him, etc. Then scroll down for my response.

What if the situation had ended tragically? I have no doubt that outside of this blog, I would of heard more people satanizing me than sending their condolences. There’s something sociopathic about our culture that way, taking a parent who’s been through hell and making the tragedy even worse with our pettiness, judgmental natures, and mean-spiritedness.

“the kid could have strangled herself in the automatic windows”

That actually did happen to a kid in my town not too long ago. Mom picked her kids up at the babysitter, loaded them into the car, realized she needed to pay the babysitter and went back in. In less than 5 minutes, toddler hung himself in the car window. He did not die, but suffered substantial brain injury from lack of oxygen. But I have always been opposed to leaving people in cars with the car running anyway so this is not a concern of mine.

Donna, fair enough if that was an actual possibility (though extremely remote). But when I explained to the haters that my car had *manual* windows (and was off and I had the key with me the whole 2.5 minutes I was gone), they accused me of lying.

So yeah – even if you have electric windows (which not everyone does) – wee babies can’t get out of their car seats to strangle themselves in the windows, older kids aren’t that stupid, and if your kid is in between, you have the protection of impossibility that comes from shutting off the car and taking the key with you.

Sigh.

Freak accidents can happen almost anywhere, doing almost anything. But a locked, stationary car is actually one of the safer places to be unattended for a few minutes.

“The rest of the world (…) would LOVE to live in 2017 America”.

OK, you got me. I confess. I’ve always secretly dreamed of living in a country where the life expectancy, income equality, minimum wages, OESO scores, World Happiness Report ranking, Child Happiness ranking, Child Safety ranking, the quality of infrastructure and the attention for the environment and climate change are lower, the vacations and maternity leave are shorter and the crime rate, obesity rate, traffic death rate, teen mom rate and incarceration rate are higher, and of course I love that fantastic public SOR! Honestly, I cry myself to sleep every night since our xenophobic, blond, right-wing idiot didn’t win the election, like in America.
If only I spoke the language.
(Really, Lenore? I realize this conversation was initially private, but surely you know better?!!)

@Jessica: were you that high school queen bee that was SHOCKED to learn that not every boy jumped at the chance to date her?

“I have had many public parent shaming incidents, but one was from a fella who worked at Home Depot. He loudly asked me in a disgusted voice why I had put my son in a hot pink snow suit. I informed HD Fella that I put my bald daughter in a hot-pink snow suit (it was 29 degrees out). He then tells me that I should get her ears pierced so that people would know she’s a girl!”

Yes, be considerate to all those poor kidnappers out there who are just trying to figure out if your baby is the right gender 😛

I was in the checkout line yesterday. The woman behind me had a toddler in the child seat of her shopping cart and a slightly older child standing beside her. They were looking at a display, she was talking to both children, doing everything in the world right as far as engaged mommy-ing goes…and the toddler stood up in the seat and the cart shifted. It was one of those heart-stopping moments that we all have by the time our kids get to adulthood, except this mother was close and fast and got her arms around her son. (Or maybe he would’ve plopped back down into the seat…I’m glad we didn’t have to find out.)

That poor woman was SO terrified. I don’t even think her brain was making the connection yet that her son hadn’t hit the ground and it was all over. There were prayers of thanks and apologies to her son and I don’t even think she heard my reassuring words. I’m hoping she didn’t see the two women in line ahead of me, who looked like they were ready to call child protective services.

Maybe she could’ve fastened the waist belt. In my experience, those were never enough to restrain a skinny toddler and most carts don’t have them, or the fasteners were missing. Her son will learn to sit still, she’ll stay closer until he does, and it was just one scary moment in a lifetime. Not, this time, an earth-shattering “incident”

My husband was sick- very sick in fact. The nearest open clinic was in a grocery store. My two daughters had to come with us as I drove. They walked out, the oldest, 5, with their dad, the youngest, 2, with me. She refused to hold my hand but was holding on to my jacket. The oldest was out of vomit range with her dad. A store employee stopped me on the way to the clinic to blast me for not having a firm watch on my kids- after all, they might get hit with a cart or something.

I called management and asked them why, on the night that my husband was admitted to the hospital, an employee saw him and felt like blasting the mom for not having handcuffs on her kids.

The district manager called me to reassure me that employee had been dealt with.

Regarding #6… An infant sleeping in an *unbuckled* car seat is actually dangerous. Buckled is fine. But unbuckled they can slide down into a position that blocks their airway, and if they can’t lift their head they can suffocate. Simple solution is to just leave them buckled. If they fell asleep that way in the first place, they are comfortable, safe, and you don’t risk waking them. But I’m guessing she’s really referring to the people who freak out about babies being left in car seats, period, because OMG you should be holding your baby every second of the day, how awful to let them sleep when they are clearly comfortable and happy!!

(FTR, those same people turned around and judged me because I actually preferred to keep my daughter in a baby carrier, because OMG, you’re spoiling her and need to put her down! You can’t win for losing.)

I don’t know whether moms are judged more than dads, but I can definitely tell you that YOUNG moms are judged more. I was only 19 when I became full-time mom to my very young step-children. I got a constant stream of comments on everything I did. (I’m 35 now, and STILL get judgement about being “too young” to be their mom.) Funnier is that my oldest daughter, who is now 19 herself, has been getting comments for years about her “parenting” of her younger siblings. When she was 17, she was playing with her baby sister at the Children’s Museum, and she got reamed out by a stranger for letting her baby sister play with toys that the other woman’s daughter had just put away. Seriously. Apparently she thought no one else was going to play with the toys now that they’d made everything look nice and neat.

I also had a friend in high school whose sisters were much older than her. When my friend was a baby (in the early 80s), her teenaged sister was pushing her stroller around the mall when a strange woman stopped and reamed the sister out for “having a baby at your age.”

@Michelle .. “OMG you should be holding your baby every second of the day”

It’s been a few years, but there were arguments on this very site (in the comment sections) about strollers, and how terrible it was to use a stroller to go for a walk/the mall/the grocery store/tour Washington DC etc. when you could be WEARING your child. Wearing them is so easy and so wonderful and you can do it til they’re really old; so why encase your baby in plastic?

Sigh.

This reminds me of an occurance last summer….

My wife, two kids (3&6), and I were walking through a grassy area in font of an outdoor “stage” (think summer concert place) that had three or so steps and a ramp. Our kids were running around on it as it is fully accessible at all tines. This woman’s kids joined mine and all of them climbed a two foot wall. Well….the verbal assault that was directed to us was unbelievable. We hadn’t stopped walking so it took a while to realise that she was speaking to us, lamenting how “your wild kids are corrupting mine into doing things they never would have on the own”.

We laughed at the obsurdity of the situation, which she got her more upset, which made us chuckle even more. Good times!!

This reminds me of a Christmas parade a few years ago. My wife got my sons (1 and 3) some foam stick things (2″ diameter, about 24″ long) that lit up. My oldest got green, my youngest red–if you’re a Star Wars fan, that tells you their personalities! While waiting for the parade, my oldest began sword-fighting with his brother and another little boy, about the same age. The three of them were having the time of their life, and their dad, my wife, and I made sure they didn’t interfere with people coming through the area. All in all, we thought it was cute, and great that our kids were being so well-behaved and friendly. No one was screaming, the “fighting” was pretty docile as these things go (no wrestling, no hitting the face or hands), and the kids were entertained during the interminable wait while the parade got started.

Then the other boy’s mother saw what was going on.

She never said a word to us. She simply glared daggers at us, yanked her kid away from ours (causing more pain to her child in one second than our kids had in twenty minutes of playing), and drug her kid and husband away from us before we could say anything. The kid was bewildered and furious–he was having fun! My boys were hurt, but took it pretty well all things considered.

My wife and I just laughed about it. Apparently we’re the bad influences. And you know what? We’re okay with it.

Another incident: My sister was climbing a tree, which was a common pastime for us growing up. The neighbor called to tell my mother that my sister was too high, and couldn’t get down. My sister was about 20 feet up–well below where we normally hung out.

I have said things to several people judging other parents, extremely harshly, but my biggest challenge is not blowing helicopters out of the sky.

I often bite my tongue when talking to hyper paranoid parents I know well. It’s mainly because I know their kids too and I hate seeing what they are doing to them.

I know one woman who was out riding horses all over mountains at 8 years old but she did not allow her daughters to check the mailbox at the edge of their yard until they were 14 and 16 years old. She gave them a lengthy lecture about child predators first, as she does every day, and made them hold hands. She recounted watching from the window in terror as her babies walked away from her. Her babies are both morbidly obese teenagers who were not allowed to participate in a lot of physical activity until they joined band in high school. I’m getting ready to sound mean but no one is plucking then off the street with ease. They’re built like bears. They are also very kind and intelligent girls who have never been allowed to attend sleep overs or slumber parties because they will be kidnapped or sexually abused. Oddly enough they can walk around the halls in their high school, and walk across football fields while playing music for an audience it walking across the yard to check the mail was seen as too much, despite the fact that the oldest was ready to drive even though she had not been allowed to walk first.

Parents used to realize that sleep overs benefited both them and their child. It slowly prepared you both for more time apart. Now it’s all too common to read blogs from mothers who realized what a terrible mistake they made while watching their 18 year old, who had never been allowed to attend a sleepover or been left alone for a moment, packing their bags for college.

The woman I know finds it odd and stupid that her now 15 and 17 year old daughters will not stay at the house by themselves, in the day, while she goes to the store. I, and others, try to say things to her )without cussing her out and calling her a moron) as kindly as we can. Sometimes I don’t know why. She would bitch about being judged after trying to get another parent arrested but I know she became a parent in a time when extended postpartum anxiety complete with welcomed intrusive thoughts is seen as the gold standard.